What New Hell Is This?

There’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned bacteriological pincer attack to take your mind off impending death.

I’m not exaggerating about the impending bit. A friend/colleague was supposed to fly to Rome today for a holiday but Italy has just closed. As I write this, it was only yesterday that the fifth person died of COVID-19 coronavirus in the U.K.; he did so in my local hospital! As the healthy crow flies, that’s about a mile away!

Experts say COVID-19 may survive on surfaces for up to several days! Everything is now a potential death trap. This has become madness overnight.

At my local doctor’s office, you sign in on a touch screen. I’ve got an appointment tomorrow — I’m probably going to wear surgical gloves. Luckily, I have loads of them due to previous needs. I presume they’ve sold out along with the British toilet roll mayhem. Some people on Twitter have been offering to swap a couple of rolls for a Porsche! Maybe I could use my gloves to get my hands on a Maserati. Mind you, that’s an awful lot of wiping down …

Back to my prosaic bacteriological pincer attack.

On Sunday night my wife and I settled down to watch a psychological police procedural film. It might not seem like a lot, but we’ve only been able to watch television together in recent months. Before that, I was trapped upstairs. Now, having spent a tiny fortune adapting our house, I can be part of my family again. I need to survive for a bit to get my money’s worth. Or at least my wife’s money’s worth!

One of the many blessings MS has bestowed upon me is lymphedema. It’s particularly bad in my torpid right leg, but suddenly, my left foot started hurting. This had never happened before. My left foot was expanding into a squash! My right foot had a cut (self-imposed, I was trying to squeeze it down a bit with a contracting sock) and it was now infected. Somehow my left foot was copying it.

Not only that, but my incessant urinary tract infection (UTI) had also returned.

The next day my doctor’s office suggested a new drug for my UTI and I gratefully accepted. It’s called Monuril (fosfomycin trometamol) and you drink it in one go. I began to feel better within an hour.

I went in to see the nurse about my feet. She put me on an antibiotic I’d not heard of (unfortunately I threw the box away without noting it down, but hey, I was feeling terrible!). On going back to have my dressings changed, things were still so bad that another antibiotic, co-amoxiclav, was prescribed. Incidentally, it is also the best for dealing with my UTIs.

For a few days I was on two antibiotics!

Things have settled down now. My left foot is more like a small melon again.

Back to avoiding COVID-19!

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